THE MOOD OF AMERICA
Gunterman, Joseph & Denial, Roy
THE MOOD OF AMERICA Samish Sails On By Joseph Gunterman San Francisco ARTHUR H. Samish, king of California's lobbyists, has sailed easily through another "expose." The legislative committee...
...About those who wait in the feeding line, not much can be ascertained...
...The apron-garbed businessman, however, simply rested his tray on the edge of the table and smiled...
...Then he matched the total amount dollar-for-dollar out of his own pocket...
...Such hard-headed devotion to the task has enabled the Guild to accomplish many tough jobs...
...But the Guild itself never bothers to find out why...
...From markets came sides of beef and pork...
...For years the building which had housed the soup kitchen had needed drastic remodeling...
...Why did the publicity on Samish produce so little a ripple on California's political seas...
...The resulting report, now almost a collector's item, gave the legislature the essential facts concerning Samish...
...The district attorney of Sacramento county, J. Francis O'Shea, was asked to look into these charges, purely from the standpoint of evidence of corruption and of possible prosecution...
...The monks first began feeding Detroit's hungry during the depression years...
...9. In the meantime another assembly committee, holding hearings in Los Angeles on the activities of George McLain, pension lobbyist, heard charges that Assemblyman John W. Evans of Los Angeles was on the McLain payroll...
...The "secret boss of California" has not been a secret for a long time...
...Leaning elbows on oak tables, the hungry derelicts watched in awed silence as several white-aproned businessmen made their way in among the tables with trays of steaming food, stopping here and there to fill empty plates...
...Well," he continued, eyeing the platter of succulent pork on his tray, "I'm not asking anyone what kind of meat this is...
...One of the earliest and most difficult occurred when the Guild started...
...Briefly, the Samish method is to maintain influence over a group of law-makers through campaign contributions and other favors and then to sell that influence to industries concerned with legislation...
...Some of them, for the first time in many years, were glad it was Easter...
...Domination of the state and its legislature by powerful business interests is nothing new in California...
...This, opponents of the system say, breaks party strength and makes candidates look to other sources for campaign funds...
...To achieve this power, Samish has spent vast sums...
...Samish is countenanced there will be corruption in the legislature...
...Seeking the reason behind the Guild's popularity, one evening at a meeting I cornered a judge who had worked with the group since its beginning...
...Not far from this dining hall is the monastery of the Capuchin monks from which the Guild takes its name...
...I have watched those pitiful figures waiting for the midday meal...
...These guys aren't going to pass the buck to me," he said...
...Exactly how much money Samish has spent, or even whom he has represented, has never been revealed...
...He has kept members of state regulatory bodies "in his pocket" and has secured the passage or defeat of propositions on election ballots...
...Well...
...He had talked to O'Shea, he said, and the district attorney had agreed that the two investigations might prove embarrassing to each other...
...To climax the whirlwind campaign, a sympathetic contractor agreed to supply part of the material as well as all of the workmen for the rebuilding—and foot the entire bill himself...
...tion a moment...
...Naturally the Guild keeps no records of the thousands of transients who visit its kitchen every year...
...A hush fell over the table as every eye turned his way...
...After that, you don't doubt how much the help is needed...
...But there is little doubt that those who see to it that a meal is available for someone in need are making the simple, unpretentious gesture of brotherhood...
...Large grocery chains contributed canned goods and bread...
...The abolition of cross-filing is being urged as a means of getting rid of lobbyist control...
...The judge considered my quesJOSEPH GUNTERMAN, a native Cali-fornian, is editor of The Associated Cooperator, a regional co-op paper . . . ROY DENIAL, an assistant editor of a trade journal, is a free-lance writer whose articles have appeared in Coronet, Country Gentleman, and Magazine Digest...
...From creameries came milk and cheese...
...In the meantime, Samish methods have changed little...
...After all, one of those men in that line could be me...
...No questions asked...
...Git a load o' that...
...One executive in a business firm turned over to the group a 180-acre farm...
...I asked...
...Since magazine articles portraying this viewpoint had evidently been written with Samish's approval—he later indicated that he had read them before publication—they added insult to injury...
...Every year since then bills to control lobbying have been placed before the legislature...
...Leadership in a genuine crusade to clean up California's lobbying mess is not likely to come from newspapers and political leaders who, for reasons of their own, have been quiet for so long...
...He was first "exposed" in 1937, 12 years ago, by a grand jury investigation in Sacramento which was called at the request of the legislature...
...Hey fellas...
...Men of all descriptions, some absolutely down-and-out, others endeavoring to maintain a certain thread-bare dignity, but all of them with a hungry, haunted look in their eyes...
...Yet the good the Guild has accomplished in the midst of a turbulent industrial metropolis cannot be measured solely in terms of dollars and brimming soup bowls...
...In so doing they serve notice to the world that in this one city-wide group, at least, the old, bogies of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, or anti-anybody are dead...
...As a witness to the degree of coopera-tiveness it has achieved, this motley organization has managed to set a table in its street-side dining "hall every day during the past 14 years for between 200-1,500 needy...
...A realtor-member reflected a slightly different viewpoint...
...Then Stewart recessed hearings until Nov...
...To this O'Shea issued an angry denial...
...The "other governor" of California, Earl Warren, and a few newspapers have uttered angry protests...
...That night the Capuchin Charity Guild was born...
...Surprising as it may seem, even today the line outside the Guild Hall is a long one...
...When the Jew spoke, his voice was calm: "Listen, boys, when you came in here for a free meal today, did anyone ask you your religion...
...At first they felt it should be composed entirely of Catholics, but several far-sighted members successfully advanced the wisdom of a community organiza-zation open to Jews and Protestants as well...
...he cried...
...The recent hearings were brought upon Samish, not only by descriptions of his power in national magazines, but perhaps more because of the attitude attributed to him...
...II Then, one night in 1935, a group of Catholic businessmen got together at the home of Ed Roney, a well-to-do automobile dealer...
...One of the volunteer "waiters," a portly gentleman, was moving along a crowded aisle with his tray of meat when a burly, open-shirted newcomer at the far end of the table rose to point a gnarled finger...
...A Jew passin' out ham-an' on Easter Sunday...
...In place of sectarianism the Guild has fostered a spirit of coopera-tiveness that has effectively erased racial and religious boundaries...
...Not much more than that is to be expected...
...The legislative committee which was to have investigated him has recessed its hearings...
...This money has come from high retainer fees and "public relations funds" provided by his clients, among whom are motor bus, brewing, liquor and racing interests...
...Samish himself, in an appeal to the Stewart committee for a "real crusade," had to hearken back to the early 1920's for the last successful reform movement in California, that of Hiram Johnson against domination by the Southern Pacific railroad...
...For here is a collection of men from many cultures, many creeds who are able to unite their efforts in a project for the common good of the community...
...To raise the necessary funds, they sponsored ice cream socials, benefit recitals, open-house meetings...
...Many of the distressed hobble through the feeding line, a few on crutches...
...A chorus of guffaws greeted this remark...
...He has thrown campaign contributions, newspaper advertising, radio time, and billboard space in seemingly unlimited quantities where they could do him the most good...
...22 it handled Samish very gingerly...
...His attitude was pictured as one of contempt for the legislators whom he reportedly controlled...
...To use the words of a member who helps pass out the food each day, "If the men are hungry, they eat...
...In California a candidate for election may file in the primaries of more than one party and thereby may win the nominations of several groups...
...Gov...
...It also gave a warning that "as long as lobbying of the type and on the scale practiced by Mr...
...However, it is not likely that Samish, if cross-filing were abolished, would be unable to adjust himself to that circumstance...
...In a sense that scene typifies the spirit of "shirtsleeve brotherhood" that has made the Capuchin Charity Guild a success in its unceasing ministry to the destitute...
...As word of the Guild's undertaking spread throughout the city, many firms decided to pitch in...
...Probably Samish will have to move more carefully as a result of the recent publicity...
...A few of the men managed an embarrassed negative shaking of the head...
...He had consented to relinquish the friars' ministry of giving when a lay organi-ation had actually been set up to handle it...
...Let us have a real crusade, such as we had when Hiram Johnson cleaned up the state of California and awakened the people," he said—displaying, as one political observer put it, "an effrontery as rare as Halley's comet...
...Warren told a press conference that the Stewart maneuver was "manifestly unfair...
...For he seeks to establish, and the evidence shown has in some instances established, a secretive 'fourth branch' of government—in effect a super-government overriding the legislative, executive, and judicial branches...
...While there were less than 200 in the original inchoate group, today its ranks number about four times that number—men of many professions, many races, many faiths, with each one devoted to helping feed the impoverished who stand in the soup kitchen line...
...9, recessed its hearings on Samish...
...The test of the group's worth must lie in its effect upon these men whom society has apparently forgotten...
...He has controlled the naming of speakers of the assembly, the makeup of legislative committees, and the fate of bills along every step toward passage...
...No governmental agency can perform its duties by shunting them off on some other agency...
...How'd you happen to join...
...They throw in the sponge and say, 'Row your own boat.' Well, I'm not going to ask the grand jury to do the work of the legislature...
...But several of the older, wiser men gave their outspoken comrade a look of melting scorn, and one of them reached out a hairy arm to pull him back to his chair...
...I've always looked on the usual type of contributions as worthy, but sort of intangible," he replied...
...His power has grown tremendously...
...7. The voters at that time approved a proposition raising legislators' salaries from $100 a month to $300...
...I figure helping the Guild is just like paying on an insurance policy...
...The report not only gave the facts...
...The state assembly gave to its committee on governmental efficiency, chaired by Assemblyman Albert I. Stewart of Los Angeles county, the task of investigating the Samish influence and power...
...One project alone raised the sum of $39,000...
...What lies ahead...
...state employes have served as his personal assistants and informants...
...With the Capuchin group, all you have to do Is drop by the monastery and take a gander at the soup kitchen line...
...Keeping that pledge has developed into a job that costs over $30,000 every year...
...That, far more than the free meals it offers, stands as the big contribution of the Capuchin Charity Guild...
...For one thing, the story of Arthur H. Samish, lobbyist, is an old one to Californians who are politically well informed...
...Thereupon Stewart, when his committee reconvened on Nov...
...How the committee felt about the job can be judged from the fact that at its first hearing in Sacramento on Sept...
...When they sometimes found it necessary to pass out as many as 2,000 loaves of bread in a single day, the Capuchin Fathers^ began to realize that they had set themselves to an overwhelming task...
...At a hurry-up meeting the Guild members decided to undertake the installation of a new floor, a completely new kitchen, a basement, and several freezer rooms, even though the architect's estimate placed the total cost at well above $40,000...
...His influence has enabled him to turn thumbs up or thumbs down on legislation affecting the interests he represents...
...Whenever I get feeling complacent or smug about my job," he confided, "that line of hungry men reminds me how very easily things change overnight...
...every year they have died quietly somewhere in the dark recesses of the legislative machinery...
...So the businessmen carer fully considered plans for getting their own group going...
...At another fund-raising conference a Jewish devotee delayed his contribution until all the money was collected and counted...
...Whether the Guild's gift of food has served to bring many a wayward man through a personal crisis is a secret...
...Some of the financial pressure on California's legislators which has made easier the work of lobbyists like Samish has been lessened by the election of Nov...
...No Questions Asked By Roy Denial Detroit MORE than 800 unshaven, tattered men gathered that afternoon in a. hall on Detroit's East Side...
...That is where a lobbyist like Samish, controlling unknown sums of money, steps in...
...Some of the men had just returned from a conference with the head of the Capuchin Monastery...
...Hiram Johnson, whose crusading spirit Artie Samish calls upon, is dead, and Samish knows it...
...For one reason or another nearly all of them are incapable of holding a steady job...
...His reason for calling them off was that the McLain investigation had been ordered and "it would seem inadvisable for the committee to press further at this time an investigation of a similar nature...
...Although a mixture of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, the Guild has never allowed differences in race or religion to become a stumbling block...
...Nothing happened as a result of the 1937 report...
...He has retained legislators as legal counsel...
Vol. 14 • January 1950 • No. 1
